After you get your first job, read Jane Bryant Quinn's Making the Most of Your Money - It's in one of my bookcases - (I used my first copy of it so much, that I wore out the paperback copy and had to buy a hardcover). It talks about everything to do with money: insurance, mutual funds, buying a house, retirement planning, etc.

Is Saving Painful?

Reasons Not to Save

Laziness - Make it a habit. When you take your check to the bank, put 10% in your savings account. Then put some in your checking account, and take some as cash.

There is another theory of economics, and that's to go into debt when you are young and poor, betting that you'll make more money later, and start to save as you get older.
If I'm not around, make sure you contact Barry Korb for financial advice. He is a good friend and was trained as a fee-for-service financial advisor. His website is Lighthouse Financial Planners

The first rule of investing is "invest in yourself." That means spend time and money to learn a skill.

Mutual Funds

Large Cap

Small Cap

Value

Growth

International

Long Term Bond

Muni

I've just scratched the surface, take a look at Mutual Funds for Dummies
or any other book on mutual funds.

Index Funds

Index funds make investing easy. Your first fund should be a U.S. large-cap fund. I suggest Vanguard's Total Stock Market Fund. In fact, One-half of your Education Savings Account (ESA) is in that fund (the other half is in an International Stock Index Fund). Later, you should add a small-cap value fund.

I plan to tell you more later about the other two important rules of investing: (1) portfolio allocation and (2) rebalancing your portfolio.

Believe it, or not!

If someone invests $100 a month starting at age 20, stops at age 30, and never contributes another cent, they will still save more than the person who also saves $100 a month but starts at age 30 and continues to save until they retire in 35 years.

Any rate of return above 5.44% will do it. I couldn't believe it when I first read it, and had to prove it to myself. It results from the power of compounding. If the return is 10%, your money will be nearly twice as large at the end of 35 years. Even though you've only invested $12,000 and the other person invested $42,000